I left New Zealand mid-2003, bound for Istanbul and a new lif. After two years, a Belgian guy lured me into his world, deep in the heart of Europe. For a long time I was an in-process immigrant. One day we married. These days it's about photography, a little red wine and wandering ... and so the journey goes.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Yael Naim, Singer

It’s a dream I almost gave up on along the way.Yael Naim.

I've been looking for ways to pick myself up today. I'm better I think and will test it later with a photo session out in the city ... of immigrant women learning to ride bicycles. It promises to be fun.

Working with musician David Donatien, Yael spent more than two years writing, recording, scrapping, re-recording and building a collection of songs that reflect her heritage (she sings in French, Hebrew and English) and her past struggles. And in doing so, she rediscovered the passion for music that drove her as a child.

"I grew up in Israel [and] had a guitar with me at all times. There was also an old organ in my home, so I was always playing that. When I was 9, I began taking classical piano, and then I discovered artists like the Beatles and Aretha Franklin, who taught me about composition and voice," Naim explained. "That was what made me the person I was, and then I lost that somewhere. When I put out my first record [2001's In a Man's Womb], it was a disappointment for me. I had just come to Paris, and I was too young, and the label was too big, and so I just didn't think I could do this anymore.

"But, when I met David, he was the first one to tell me that I could produce and arrange my own music, and that I didn't need to work with big producers," she continued. "I just needed to come and sit down with him and make the music I loved. And that's how I started to find my direction and my voice and look at things that happened in a funny way, which is what this album is about."